Bush's Detainee Legislation Monday, July 31, 2006

The neocon/corporatist machine presses on, painstakingly unraveling our moral authority and our Constitutional protections, one bill at a time. Bush's new propsal to legitimize his unconstitutional torture and detention of "terror suspects" is frightening in scope. According to The Boston Globe:

According to the draft [proposal], the military would be allowed to detain all "enemy combatants" until hostilities cease. The bill defines enemy combatants as anyone "engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners who has committed an act that violates the law of war and this statute."

Legal experts said Friday that such language is dangerously broad and could authorize the military to detain indefinitely U.S. citizens who had only tenuous ties to terror networks like al Qaeda.

"That's the big question ... the definition of who can be detained," said Martin Lederman, a law professor at Georgetown University who posted a copy of the bill to a Web blog.

Scott L. Silliman, a retired Air Force Judge Advocate, said the broad definition of enemy combatants is alarming because a U.S. citizen loosely suspected of terror ties would lose access to a civilian court -- and all the rights that come with it. Administration officials have said they want to establish a secret court to try enemy combatants that factor in realities of the battlefield and would protect classified information.

The administration's proposal, as considered at one point during discussions, would toss out several legal rights common in civilian and military courts, including barring hearsay evidence, guaranteeing "speedy trials" and granting a defendant access to evidence. The proposal also would allow defendants to be barred from their own trial and likely allow the submission of coerced testimony.

That's right. In Bush's America the government would be allowed to:

1. Throw you in jail indefinitely without any actual evidence
2. Torture you in order to make you confess and then convict you based on that confession
3. Deny you the right to legal counsel

I am appalled that this cabal which has usurped control of our government has the audacity to even try to pass legislation like this. This could never actually pass in congress... could it? They couldn't possibly try to undermine the very fabric of our legal system, could they? I guess that's the most terrifying thing: I beleieve they might try to do just that.

This administration has me frightened for my very safety. The "War on Terror" is a witch hunt on a scale so bloody and sinister that it makes McCarthyism seem tame. This is police state legislation.